Catholic Culture This Week: Eugenics…Here We Come!

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President Obama's issued an executive order yesterday.  This particular order lifted "restrictions on federally financed human embryonic stem cell research." The outcome of the lessened restrictions will certainly be that Congress considers the use of taxpayers' dollars to fund the pseudo-science.

With a simple stroke of his pen, our president has placed himself, Congress, and possibly our country, inside the reach of grave evil.  There is not another way to describe it: his executive order will almost certainly lead to the exploitation and destruction of human life, something that can never be considered good.

During prayerful reflection over the past two days, the apparent evil in this situation has become crystal clear.  Let us consider the course of events from this point forward.

  • Congress considers the use of taxpayers' (many of whom abhor the idea of embryonic stem cell research) dollars to fund the "beneficial" research.
  • Congress legislates for the use of taxpayers' dollars to fund the research (probably against the wishes of most of their constituents who will call, write, and email, only to be ignored).
  • Embryonic stem cell research will begin as a way to find and provide cures for diseases and bodily deformities.
  • People will begin to see that embryonic stem cells (some of which never existed before; but were created simply for this particular purpose) can help them rectify some of their minor physical flaws.  After all, shouldn't everyone have the opportunity to have the "perfect" body?
  • After the novelty of perfecting their own bodies wears off, people will begin to toy around with the idea of creating a "perfect" mate or child.
  • Those who have enough money and not enough moral and ethical virtue will want to design a special person (just like the custom cars that are ordered on a daily basis; and just like having the Whopper "your way").
  • The creation of one designer person will lead to more and more designer people until a "perfect" human community (i.e., race) has been created.

Remind me: which was the group of people during the mid-twentieth century that wanted to create a "perfect" race?  The Nazis, you say?

There is only one difference: The Nazis didn't have sufficient scientific technology to create a master race from embryos, so they had to kill everyone who didn't fit their "perfect type."  Embryonic stem cell research will harvest, kill, and discard human beings (during an early stage of development) so that it can be passed off "science" instead of eugenics.  After all, if "no one is getting hurt," then it must be acceptable.

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